Category Archives: Climate Change

5 Gold Rings – 2012 in review

 

On the fifth day of Christmas 2012, here are some thoughts on the last year …

My enduring memory of these last twelve months will be Danny Boyle’s awe-inspiring creativity with the Olympic rings at the London 2012 opening ceremony.

From the way the idyllic countryside scene was transformed to depict the Industrial Revolution and the hot metal seemingly flowed to form gigantic glowing rings which were then raised above the stadium and fused together was one of the most amazing theatrical displays I have ever seen. It set the tone for what I will always remember as a wonderful golden period for the British people during a back-drop of financial depression and tough times. Continue reading →

Revolution revisited

Back at the beginning of February 2011, I wrote a post titled ‘I predict a riot!‘ that sparked an interesting debate.

The post itself questioned the importance of social media in the context of the Arab Spring and asked what might happen in the Western world and particularly the spiritual home of ‘social media’ – the US – as financial challenges worsened.

Almost 2 years have passed since that post and I have been revisiting some of the things that have happened since then.

I’ve just finished reading ‘Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt’ . If you want to continue your days looking on the bright side – then do not read this book!  It is staggeringly depressing.

By way of a brief summary, the book covers the following accounts … Continue reading →

50 months to save the world …

… as we know it.

This is the stark reckoning from onehundredmonths.org who’s countdown process and excellent updates I have been following for a few years now.

Beyond this point, there is steadily growing scientific conscensus that if we have not taken sufficient action to curb greenhouse gas emissions within this timeframe there is the very serious possibility of runaway global warming. The resulting rise in temperatures will turn our planet into quite a hostile place for the vast majority of the human race in its current form and locations.

As usual, claim and counter claim continue from both sides of the climate change debate and without being blessed with a crystal ball or DeLorean time machine we have to decide as individuals which side of the debate we stand or else take no notice at all and carry on with our lives as usual.

Given the unpredictability of Mother Nature, who really knows for sure whether one event will counteract another in the future and the human race has shown it can rise to challenges when the need is strong enough. However, looking around us in the year 2012, it’s clear that things are changing. The wettest summer in the UK for 100 years and record levels of ice melt in the arctic are just two events relatively close to home that we have felt the effects of. A very tangible example of which I have discovered this last month in my back garden. Continue reading →

Could playing 'games' help safeguard our planet?

via cycling.com

The success of the London 2012 Olympics shows that our enthusiasm for ‘The Games’ has not waned since our earliest civilisations battled to become Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger).

As the sun sets on the Games of the XXX Olympiad and we head off to XXXI in Rio, the next 4 years have been deemed crucial by some organisations for addressing potentially one of the biggest issues facing our planet – global warming.

We are just 2 short months from the onehundredmonths.org half way point and the remaining 50 months will take us up to the next ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ in Rio 2016.

London 2012 has been described as the ‘greenest games ever’ and this article debates quite nicely just how true this is. Regardless of the efforts that have gone into building the venues from recycled materials and creating new wildlife habitats, the article points out that …
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Reasons to be cheerful – one, two, three

Well, we’ve made it through Blue Monday, which is reckoned to be the most depressing day of the year – and presumably the rest of the week isn’t deemed to have been much better.

If I was looking at things on face value I’d have to say they weren’t looking so good right now. This last year has been the toughest I have known it since first entering the workplace in the mid 1980s and a lot of commentators are talking about us teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession. Some recent number crunching by The Guardian illustrates quite well what this latest recession looks like graphically in comparison to other major downturns.

Ian Dury - legend of the UK new wave scene - had a good list of reasons to be cheerful in the dire 1970s

Although young at the time, I remember the effect the recessions of the 70s and early 80s had on family members. In the recession of the late 80s/early 90s, I lost the first main job I’d ever had when the construction industry I was working in virtually imploded overnight. In the early part of this century during the dotcom bust, the two big companies I worked for, NTL and Lucent, lost billions and laid off many, many thousands.

It doesn’t surprise me therefore that this current recession looks graphically closer to the great depression of the 1930s because, based on experiences of other recessions and market bubble bursts, it feels like it too, as it grinds on year after year.

On face value this doesn’t look like a great time to be trying to start a business but then this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone against the flow. So, as new wave rockers Ian Dury and the Blockheads sung back in the 1970s …

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
A little drop of claret – anything that rocks

Reasons to be cheerful – one, two, three

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